Bacon opens an idea of knowledge based on the observation of data, a model that will inform about the following epistemological evolutions, including those that will lead Auguste Comte to realize the "social physics" that will then become sociology. Bacon and logical positivism are contemporary to the invention of the telescope and microscope, instruments for observation (micro and macro) that showed how the visible to the human eye did not have the qualities of completeness and correctness. Galilei and the use of the telescope brought to light two questions: 1) that the perception based on the instrument was more real than that based on faith; 2) that science presupposed a way of describing the world based on visual terms.
The role of the image
But the role of the image quickly diverted from its purely scientific use; the camera showed its nature and social role. Photography represented an important change in the nineteenth century's imagination, a change that was reinvigorated from the birth of the film, from the introduction of sound to television and the Internet. Electronics is an important step in the evolution of the role of the image. In fact, it does not only allow images to be manipulated, but also favours the adoption of a hyperlogical that represents an alternative to the linear model consolidated with writing and typography. The path inaugurated by Galilei with the telescope today reaches the last step (for now) represented by virtual reality; machines that transform nervous stimulations into visual and tactile sensations, overcoming and alternating the traditional boundaries represented by the body and society. Since visual sociology aims to represent the place of union between images and science, then we should take care of these interactive forms. Sociologists and anthropologists have given themselves the right to photograph the subjects they study and then use these images as "academic objects".
The power of photography
Obviously, every era determines its flow also on the choices of representative images and their interpretation. It is precisely from the awareness that the photographic instrument embodies the social differences that has led many sociologists to abandon this technique. Visual sociologists are offered at least two alternatives: the first is to use the camera as a tool for collecting information through which to "bring out" theory; the second is to use the images in the function of photo-stimulus within interviews. In this second sense, photography loses its claim to objectivity. In reality, the power of photography lies in its ability to open up the subjectivity of those who see the image in a different way from the researcher. Today, our reality is mainly built through images, which are increasingly made to be distributed, experienced and understood. You cannot do sociology by completely ignoring this dimension.
